Medicare & the Aging: Oct. 6, 2022
Nursing Home Surprise: Advantage Plans May Shorten Stays to Less Time Than Medicare Covers
By Susan Jaffe
Private Medicare Advantage health plans are increasingly ending coverage for skilled nursing or rehab services before medical providers think patients are healthy enough to go home, doctors and patient advocates say.
While Inflation Takes a Toll on Seniors, Billions of Dollars in Benefits Go Unused
By Judith Graham
With prices of necessities rising dramatically, many older Americans are having trouble making ends meet. They often don’t know that help is available from a variety of programs, and some sources of financial assistance are underused.
Britain’s Hard Lessons From Handing Elder Care Over to Private Equity
By Christine Spolar
Four Seasons Health Care collapsed after years of private equity investors rolling in one after another to buy its business, sell its real estate, and at times wrest multimillion-dollar profits from it through complex debt schemes. The deal-making failed to account for the true cost of senior care.
Clearing Pollution Helps Clear the Fog of Aging — And May Cut the Risk of Dementia
By Judith Graham
Two studies published this year provide evidence that older adults’ cognitive health may benefit if air quality is improved.
Death Is Anything but a Dying Business as Private Equity Cashes In
By Markian Hawryluk
Investors are banking on increased demand in death care services as 73 million baby boomers near the end of their lives.
Severe Sleep Apnea Diagnosis Panics Reporter Until He Finds a Simple, No-Cost Solution
By Jay Hancock
An industry has grown up around sleep apnea, stirring concerns about overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
Genetic Tests Create Treatment Opportunities and Confusion for Breast Cancer Patients
By Michelle Andrews
Doctors are divided on whether blanket testing of breast cancer patients is warranted, since scientists and physicians are sometimes unsure about how to interpret the results.
Covid Still Kills, but the Demographics of Its Victims Are Shifting
By Phillip Reese
Californians were far less likely to die from covid in the first seven months of 2022 than during the first two years of the pandemic. Still, the virus remained among the state’s leading causes of death in July, outpacing diabetes, accidental death, and a host of debilitating diseases. We break down who’s at risk.
Centene Agrees to Pay Massachusetts $14 Million Over Medicaid Prescription Claims
By Andy Miller and Samantha Young
Massachusetts is the latest state to settle with St. Louis-based Centene Corp. over allegations that it overcharged Medicaid prescription drug programs.
Shift in Child Hospice Care Is a Lifeline for Parents Seeking a Measure of Comfort and Hope
By Bernard J. Wolfson and Heidi de Marco
Terminally ill children, unlike adults, can get hospice services while continuing to receive life-extending or curative care. More than a decade after the inception of the federal policy, it is widely credited with improving the quality of life for ailing children and their families, even as some parents find themselves in a painful stasis.
‘An Arm and a Leg’: The New Cap on Medicare Drug Costs
By Dan Weissmann
In this episode, Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KHN, guides listeners through decades of dealings between Congress and Big Pharma.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Biden Declares the Pandemic ‘Over’
President Joe Biden, in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” declared the covid-19 pandemic “over,” stoking confusion for members of his administration trying to persuade Congress to provide more funding to fight the virus and the public to get the latest boosters. Meanwhile, concerns about a return of medical inflation is helping boost insurance premiums even as private companies race to get their piece of the health pie. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, and Lauren Weber of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also, for extra credit, the panelists suggest their favorite health policy stories they think you should read, too.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: On Government Spending, Congress Decides Not to Decide
Congress has once again decided not to decide how to fund the federal government in time for the start of the fiscal year, racing toward a midnight Sept. 30 deadline to pass a stopgap bill that would keep the lights on for two more months. However, it does appear the FDA’s program that gets drugmakers to help fund some of the agency’s review staff will be renewed in time to stop pink slips from being sent. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and Victoria Knight of Axios join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these topics and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews filmmaker Cynthia Lowen, whose new documentary, “Battleground,” explores how anti-abortion forces played the long game to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Journalists Dig In on the Fiscal Health of the Nation and Hospital Closures in Rural Missouri
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Padres con hijos muy enfermos encuentran consuelo y esperanza en la ayuda de hospicio en el hogar
By Bernard J. Wolfson
Si bien el cáncer es una de las principales enfermedades que afectan a los niños en cuidados paliativos, muchos otros tienen defectos congénitos raros, deficiencias neurológicas graves o deficiencias metabólicas poco comunes.